STAT3 and cancer: Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) in the 3036 DEGs revealed that signal transduction and activation of the transcription 3 (STAT3) pathway, the molecular mechanism of cancer, JAK/STAT signaling, IL6 signaling and mouse embryonic stem cell pluripotency were all significantly affected by miR-204-5p (Figure S3A), implicating that miR-204-5p in a critical role of maintaining cancer stem cell-like traits, which was confirmed in our earlier functional studies above.